Sailing without a rudder

By Jeremy D. Troxler

Published: Friday, May 3, 2013 at 07:26 PM.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Such was the view of the founders of our nation when the Declaration of Independence was endorsed. In the first lines of a press release on June 1, 2005 by the National Archives, the government of these United States wrote that “…the Declaration of Independence is a document upon which our nation’s founding principles were established.” Just a few paragraphs later, the press release stated “When it was first brought to Washington (in 1800) it traveled by boat, down the Delaware River and Bay, out into the ocean, into the Chesapeake Bay, and up the Potomac to the new capital city.” In reading of an ongoing court case in Pennsylvania I wonder why just 250 years after this nation’s establishment and just eight years from consent to the same ideals we have somehow categorically denied those foundational principles.

The trial of Kermit Gosnell began on March 18, 2013. The prosecution ended on April 11, 2013. The defense rested on Wednesday, April 24 without calling any witnesses. Closing arguments are expected to be delivered on Monday, April 29, 2013. Mr. Gosnell was charged with the murder of seven babies and one adult. As disturbing and despicable as the details of the conditions of the clinic and the procedures performed are reported to be, it is equally troubling that the foundational principles of this nation are being trampled. In an Associated Press article, the assistant district attorney for the prosecution (responding to the clinical practice of retaining the severed feet of babies for the purpose of DNA retention) stated the following, “Once fetuses leave the mother, they are then due the respect that would be given any human being.” Isn’t it striking that the district attorney (the one bringing charges of infanticide) assumes that only after a human baby leaves the mother’s birth canal can it be considered a human being. Only human babies grow in human mother’s wombs. If all mankind is created equal by their Creator, and endowed by their Creator with the Rights of Life and Liberty then why would we be so foolish as to prescribe respect only to those babies who have moved the two feet from inside the womb to outside the womb? I suppose it is relatively easy to make proclamations about when human dignity is warranted after one has already been afforded his own Right to Life and Liberty.

We have jettisoned the founding principles of this nation and now operate on the completely arbitrary whim and fancy of current social standing. How else would one explain a policy for legally killing unborn human babies in the womb who have developed for 24 weeks (6 months), when the same doctor would be required by law to try to save and/or provide care for the same baby if he/she had been born at just 22 weeks? Yet astonishingly, this is the current policy in the state of Pennsylvania. If we deny our foundational principle of all mankind created by a Creator then we are left with arbitrary standards like babies born at 22 weeks being fully human and deserving of unalienable rights and respect but those in utero at 24 weeks being no different than tumors to be destroyed with impunity.

Our Creator has said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” (Genesis 1:26, ESV) “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb,” (Psalm 139:13), “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” (Jeremiah 1:5, ESV) and perhaps most applicable here, “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5, ESV).

It is hard to know whether to weep for the loss of principled thinking, or scream in frustration at the apathetic and capricious attitude toward the intrinsic value, the invested dignity, the sacredness of human life. I am quite sure that the ship carrying the Declaration of Independence through the waterways of the East was equipped with a captain who had knowledge of his destination, clear vision of the way ahead and a fully functional rudder with which to guide his vessel. How will we who have thrown the captain overboard, discarded the absolute vision of a clear destination and dismantled the rudder of our American society traverse the rivers of the age? In my opinion, if we remain buoyed by relativism of truth, guided by the undirected oar of progress and change, and propelled by the ever-changing winds of the whims of human collaboration, then we will stand on the deck cheering “full steam ahead” as the ship crashes into the cliffs of reality. May we be granted the wisdom to see the foolishness of the course we are on, to recognize the purpose for which we were created, and return to those principles that are foundational.

Jeremy D. Troxler lives in Elon, is the author of In, Not Of — Christian Relevance in 21st Century America and can be contacted at jdt@triad.rr.com or http://jeremydtroxler.blogspot.com

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Such was the view of the founders of our nation when the Declaration of Independence was endorsed. In the first lines of a press release on June 1, 2005 by the National Archives, the government of these United States wrote that “…the Declaration of Independence is a document upon which our nation’s founding principles were established.” Just a few paragraphs later, the press release stated “When it was first brought to Washington (in 1800) it traveled by boat, down the Delaware River and Bay, out into the ocean, into the Chesapeake Bay, and up the Potomac to the new capital city.” In reading of an ongoing court case in Pennsylvania I wonder why just 250 years after this nation’s establishment and just eight years from consent to the same ideals we have somehow categorically denied those foundational principles.

The trial of Kermit Gosnell began on March 18, 2013. The prosecution ended on April 11, 2013. The defense rested on Wednesday, April 24 without calling any witnesses. Closing arguments are expected to be delivered on Monday, April 29, 2013. Mr. Gosnell was charged with the murder of seven babies and one adult. As disturbing and despicable as the details of the conditions of the clinic and the procedures performed are reported to be, it is equally troubling that the foundational principles of this nation are being trampled. In an Associated Press article, the assistant district attorney for the prosecution (responding to the clinical practice of retaining the severed feet of babies for the purpose of DNA retention) stated the following, “Once fetuses leave the mother, they are then due the respect that would be given any human being.” Isn’t it striking that the district attorney (the one bringing charges of infanticide) assumes that only after a human baby leaves the mother’s birth canal can it be considered a human being. Only human babies grow in human mother’s wombs. If all mankind is created equal by their Creator, and endowed by their Creator with the Rights of Life and Liberty then why would we be so foolish as to prescribe respect only to those babies who have moved the two feet from inside the womb to outside the womb? I suppose it is relatively easy to make proclamations about when human dignity is warranted after one has already been afforded his own Right to Life and Liberty.

We have jettisoned the founding principles of this nation and now operate on the completely arbitrary whim and fancy of current social standing. How else would one explain a policy for legally killing unborn human babies in the womb who have developed for 24 weeks (6 months), when the same doctor would be required by law to try to save and/or provide care for the same baby if he/she had been born at just 22 weeks? Yet astonishingly, this is the current policy in the state of Pennsylvania. If we deny our foundational principle of all mankind created by a Creator then we are left with arbitrary standards like babies born at 22 weeks being fully human and deserving of unalienable rights and respect but those in utero at 24 weeks being no different than tumors to be destroyed with impunity.

Our Creator has said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” (Genesis 1:26, ESV) “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb,” (Psalm 139:13), “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” (Jeremiah 1:5, ESV) and perhaps most applicable here, “As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” (Ecclesiastes 11:5, ESV).

It is hard to know whether to weep for the loss of principled thinking, or scream in frustration at the apathetic and capricious attitude toward the intrinsic value, the invested dignity, the sacredness of human life. I am quite sure that the ship carrying the Declaration of Independence through the waterways of the East was equipped with a captain who had knowledge of his destination, clear vision of the way ahead and a fully functional rudder with which to guide his vessel. How will we who have thrown the captain overboard, discarded the absolute vision of a clear destination and dismantled the rudder of our American society traverse the rivers of the age? In my opinion, if we remain buoyed by relativism of truth, guided by the undirected oar of progress and change, and propelled by the ever-changing winds of the whims of human collaboration, then we will stand on the deck cheering “full steam ahead” as the ship crashes into the cliffs of reality. May we be granted the wisdom to see the foolishness of the course we are on, to recognize the purpose for which we were created, and return to those principles that are foundational.

Jeremy D. Troxler lives in Elon, is the author of In, Not Of — Christian Relevance in 21st Century America and can be contacted at jdt@triad.rr.com or http://jeremydtroxler.blogspot.com